Stella Artois: Reassuringly Expensive

Stella Artois: Reassuringly Expensive

SUMMARY

Throughout the 1980s, when lager brewers were spending
millions on ever more lavish TV advertising campaigns, one brand
pursued an altogether different route. It religiously eschewed
the bright lights of TV in favour of a low-impact press
advertising, and ran its own style of confident, at times,
arrogant copy, proclaiming of all things how absurdly expensive
it was. Many must have expected the brand to be consigned to a
minority existence in the ever-expanding, highly competitive
premium lager market; to their astonishment it not only assumed
brand leadership, but holds that position even now.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Stella Artois had all
the ingredients of a brand-leading lager, yet its sales
performance was sluggish. Volume grew only in line with the
market, and its share was 6% and slowly declining. In 1981,
Whitbread moved the advertising account to newly-formed Lowe
Howard-Spink, who realised that what the brand needed was a
phrase which could unite the various aspects of the brand's
appeal and act as a catalyst to drive the brand forward. This
phrase was:

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